There is only one person in the world of television sports who can (and may!) Still ask an athlete “who are you really?” – and get away with it: We are of course talking about SVT-sport’s Mats Nyström.
Among other things, he has led 300 Sports Mirrors since 1995.
During the Swedish Championship week, he leads a wonderful evening magazine from an outdoor studio in Linköping, and I know no one who could make it better and more lively. He can talk bowling, roller skiing, jet skiing, or any sport, he at least makes me think that everything is just as interesting and above all just as fun.
He is everything, and has everything, that the fast guys and besserwissrar during, for example, the football and hockey broadcasts lack and have completely missed, and he can sound no matter how stylish and old fashion, but he knows where his audience is, how they look out and what language they speak.
It’s Mats Nyström in a nutshell, and one who loves that variety still exists. I may at some point have been hard on him too over the years, the selective memory when you get older comes with the pension discounts, today you enjoy above all the joy and enthusiasm he spreads in his job.
The Swedish Championship week is back after two pandemic years, and SVT-sport broadcasts largely disturbed, it is exciting and odd sports and grateful athletes, it is large parts of the real sports Sweden that are not covered in any other media, it is public service so it smokes.
In the evenings, as I said, Mats Nyström collects the day’s activities, together with his colleague Maria Wallberg and a steady stream of guests, in his “Summer open with the Swedish Championships week”. It’s 48 minutes that disappear in the blink of an eye.
One of the reports on Thursday was made by another longtime employee at SVT-sporten, Rickard Lauenborg Ekman. He interviewed one of Sweden’s best female tennis players of all time, Sofia Arvidsson, now a 38-year-old mother of three who has just won the paddle championship in doubles. Rickard had interviewed Sofia already 23 years ago, when he visited Söndrum in Halmstad and had a conversation with a promising but very shy 15-year-old. When the adult Sofia now got to meet the young Sofia on a screen and see the old interview, she completely broke down, tears flowed, she had a hard time conducting the interview. I’m not normally very receptive to that kind of emotional turmoil in athletes, but neither Rickard nor Sofia made a spectacular circus out of it, it turned out to be a nice nostalgic meeting that most of us could share.
Good work.
In anticipation of this summer’s big event, a European Football Championship where Sweden is the favorite (everyone who knows how such expectations are usually tackled raises a hand), you can of course follow how Armand Duplantis continues to not only fly higher and higher, but also acts as a kind of national cheerleader. You have to look for a happier shit, and now he is also available in really good Swedish. Has anyone played Birgitta Andersson’s classic from the 60’s: “I’m so happy that I’m Swedish” for him?
And of course it is now also Wimbledon (Discovery), perhaps the championship that has meant the most to me in my life, in competition with some classic European and world championships in football. My sister lived for many years in London and I often went over to first see the rehearsal at Queens, more beautiful center court you have to look for, then Wimbledon. No, I did not see any big finals live, but that was not the point – it was just to be in the area, lol around the sidewalks, stand in triple lines and be crowded. You were close! In Queens, at that time (80s), you could see world stars strolling past moles alone on their way to a match in the third round. I turn on the Wimbledon broadcasts and actually recognize the scents. Have you never been there: Go!
Read more sports-in-TV chronicles by Johan Croneman:
I would like to see Forsberg and Asllani talk training and demands on TV
Brolin makes me suddenly forgive TV4 for all the shit music
–
